Religious faith and practice can make the most committed and powerful contributions to reconciliation and to economic justice. It can also use texts and traditions to avoid responsibility and to commit selfish or harmful actions, says Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches. Speaking to the UN, he offers an inspiring yet honest vision of the way churches and other religious communities can make a vital contribution to building justice and peace for the whole of humanity, while being held necessarily accountable before God and the world they are intended to serve.

"Media, Faith and State post-Leveson" is the theme of a panel discussion on Tuesday 19 March 2003 in the Martin Hall, Edinburgh University School of Divinity, New College, Mound Place, Edinburgh, EH1 2LX.

The seed of violence seems to be in everyone at some level or other. But what does ideology and religion bring to the human propensity towards violent conflict? In what ways does faith help assuage or provoke confrontation?